From the author of The Carolina Slade Mystery Series and editor of FundsforWriters.com.
Writing can be such a sweet life, once we decide to make it so.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Open Your Window

My children left the house after a weekend visit. They always bring their black lab Harper, who puts life back into the place, reminding me how much I miss my dachshund Dixie. Hubby was out of the house for a few hours, so when the kids and Harper left, the house...went...quiet.

I blogged, researched, read email. Found one post about a funeral, well done but not what I needed to read at the moment. I sighed like every five minutes, not motivated in the least to write. Twitter was dead and Facebook inactive due to the holiday weekend. Double sigh.

A wasp buzzed past me, probably slipped in with the kids going in and out. He bumped the windows, wanting out. So I opened the window. He flew further back into the room, afraid, so I left the window open.

Oh, what a change.

I heard a mallard pair come up from the lake, arguing with each other as they sought the remnants scattered on the ground under my bird feeders. A breeze began, and the smell was heavenly. Memories rushed in of sleeping on my grandmother's four-poster bed on her farm, taking my afternoon nap in my underwear as a six-year-old. A female cardinal beckoned to her guy, who promptly joined her.

The wasp found his way out, and a stronger breeze came in as a steel blue cloud blocked the sun. A soft, gentle rain hit the lake and my sloping lawn with a hushed, whispering, ozone-scented shower, and the tree frogs sang in ecstasy in a rising crescendo.

I smiled. My mood shifted. All I needed was a change of atmosphere.

Sometimes you don't need a retreat, a grant to get away, or a critique group at the library. Sometimes you don't need to escape. Maybe you need a quick, soft rainfall to distract you, sprout old memories, and release you from the moody box you're in.

Flip open an old favorite book and smell the pages. Cook up cinnamon and apple juice in the kitchen to remind you of cheerful holidays. Cut the grass. Light a candle. Set a new lamp on your desk to alter the lighting. Play background music from a certain, special era.

Yes, sometimes all it takes is to open a window . . . and you can write.

I thoroughly enjoyed taking a mini vacation into your writing this morning. Your home sounds wonderfully inspiring. Perhaps you should start a bed and breakfast for wayward writers on the side in your nonexistent free time. Have a glorious weekend!

I had just hung up the phone talking with a friend from grade schoolabout the wonderful life we had as children those many years ago when I came across your essay. I was instantly transported back to the time we had just talked about. Life was simple. Laying back in the grass, watching clouds was a form of entertainment.

Carolina Slade Mystery Series

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If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need. ~Marcus Tullius Cicero

Hope is founder of FundsforWriters.com. Find her clips in Writer's Digest, The Writer, and other trade magazines. Alma Mater is Clemson University which gives her an eerie love for all things orange. Her newest release is Palmetto Poison, released by Bell Bridge Books in February 2014. Lowcountry Bribe is the first in the Carolina Slade series. Tidewater Murder is the second. Available at Amazon, B&N and www.bellbridgebooks.com

Hope speaks to writers groups all over the country regarding earning a living as a writer, mystery writing, and her favorite subject, The Shy Writer. She lives on the banks of Lake Murray in SC.